UNIVERSITY    OF    CALIFORNIA  agricultural  experiment  Station 

COLLEGE    OF  AGRICULTURE  E-  J-  WICKSON,  Acting   D. RECTOR 

BERKELEY,    CALIFORNIA 


CIRCULAR  No.  15. 

(August,  1905.) 

Recent  Problems  in  Agriculture. 


WHAT  A  UNIVERSITY  FARM  IS  FOR. 

INTRODUCTORY   NOTE. 

Liberty  Hyde  Bailey,  Professor  of  Agriculture  in  Cornell  Univer- 
sity, delivered  a  lecture  for  the  University  of  California  Summer 
Session  on  Friday  evening,  August  fourth,  1905,  on  "  Present  Prob- 
lems in  Agriculture."  That  portion  of  the  lecture  which  dealt  with 
the  question  of  the  purposes  of  a  University  Farm  is  here  printed 
as  a  contribution  to  a  question  of  pressing  public  interest. 

The  agricultural  college  idea  is  by  no  means  new;  it  is  at  least 
two  hundred  years  old.  In  this  country  the  agricultural  college,  as  an 
established  fact,  originated  about  fifty  years  ago.  Year  after  next 
will  be  celebrated  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  Agricultural  College, 
near  Lansing,  Michigan.  The  first  agricultural  colleges  were  estab- 
lished as  a  protest  against  the  older  kind  of  education  that  did  not 
put  men  into  touch  with  real  affairs.  The  Land  Grant  Act  of  1862 
marks  one  of  the  greatest  epochs  in  the  history  of  education ;  it  is 
the  Magna  Chart  a  of  education.  Its  purpose  was  to  give  instruction 
in  those  subjects  and  affairs  which  have  to  do  with  real  life.  And, 
what  are  they"?  They  are  largely  agriculture  and  the  mechanical 
arts.  As  these  agricultural  colleges  were  largely  a  protest  against 
the  older  education  it  was  perfectly  natural  that  at  first  they  should 
be  separate  institutions. 

About  one-half  of  the  agricultural  colleges  of  the  Union  are  sepa- 
rate from  the  universities  proper.  They  are  doing  good  work,  and 
I  am  saying  nothing  whatever  derogatory  to  them.  There  are  some 
reasons  still  given  for  having  separate  agricultural  colleges.  It  is 
said  that  other  courses  will  attract  the  young  men  from  the  farm. 
Now,  if  the  agricultural  college  can 't  hold  the  young  men  it  ought  to 


lose  them ;  the  time  is  past  when  we  shall  put  blinders  on  the  young 
men.  Again,  it  is  said  that  the  farm  boy  will  be  looked  down  on, 
but  students  will  not  look  down  upon  him  if  his  work  is  of  equally 
high  grade  as  that  pursued  in  other  courses.  Sometimes  the  agri- 
cultural college  is  wanted  in  a  separate  locality  to  satisfy  local  pride. 
A  locality  wants  to  have  an  agricultural  college  and  offers  induce- 
ments to  get  it.  This  does  not  consider  the  merits  of  the  case.  In 
some  cases,  a  broom  factory  might  be  just  as  satisfying  to  the  com- 
munity. The  University  idea  is  coming  to  be  a  unifying  idea  in  the 
community,  and  all  university  work  should  be  kept  together.  The 
time  is  past  when  the  agricultural  college  should  be  torn  out  of  the 
university  and  be  set  off  by  itself. 

The  agricultural  college  is  founded  on  the  conception  that  educa- 
tion must  relate  itself  to  life.  Important  corollaries  follow.  In  the 
first  place,  agricultural  education  should  not  necessarily  be  bound 
by  academic  methods.  The  teaching  work  in  a  college  really  divides 
itself  into  two  parts,  (a)  the  true  college  work,  leading  to  a  Bachelor's 
degree;  (b)  postgraduate  work,  leading  to  two  degrees,  the  first  of 
these  being  the  Master's  degree,  which  should  be  given  for  experi- 
mental and  investigational  work,  the  work  involved  in  the  collection 
and  accumulation  of  facts,  etc.,  and  the  Doctor's  degree,  which  should 
be  given  for  a  philosophical  consideration  of  the  facts  and  the  collec- 
tions of  data. 

Two  great  enterprises  have  now  come  into  the  college — the  experi- 
ment station  and  university  extension.  They  are  not  university  work 
in  the  old  academic  sense.  The  extension  enterprises  form  the  best 
illustrations  of  the  leadership  the  university  has  now  acquired  in 
public  affairs.  The  university  is  required  to  do  university  extension 
work  and  it  goes  beyond  the  old  academic  ideals. 

Agricultural  education  also  rests  upon  a  large  and  quickened 
idea  of  the  laboratory  method.  We  are  introducing  laboratory 
methods  into  every  school  in  the  country;  the  kindergarten,  manual 
training,  the  school  garden,  and  science  work — all  mean  the  laboratory 
method.  And  now  we  also  introduce  the  affairs  of  every-day  life 
into  the  schools.  All  laboratories  are  pedagogically  valuable  in  pro- 
portion as  they  are  in  vital  connection  with  theoretical  instruction. 
No  school,  whether  in  California  or  elsewhere,  from  the  primary 
school  to  the  university  is  a  good  school  unless  it  has  laboratory 
work.  The  effort  is  now  being  made  to  introduce  into  every  high 
school  in  New  York  a  year's  work  in  biology  for  the  first  year. 

All  this  brings  up  the  whole  question  of  the  university  farm.  The 
college  or  university  farm  developed  with  the  Land  Grant  Act.  In 
its  history  it  has  gone  through  several  phases.     It  was  first  con- 


ceived  of  largely  as  a  model  farm,  and  of  course  the  model  farms 
became  the  laughing  stock  of  the  farmers  of  the  state;  and  they  will 
always  be.  If  they  are  model  farms  they  have  little  pedagogical  use. 
One  farm  cannot  be  a  pattern  farm  for  all  conditions.  There  are 
thousands  of  model  farms.  Model  farms  are  good  farmers'  farms. 
The  state  cannot  afford  to  go  into  the  model  farm  business  in  connec- 
tion with  university  work. 

In  the  second  place,  the  farms  came  to  be  used  merely  to  illustrate 
farm  practices.  In  the  old  days  we  had  museums  in  our  colleges, 
and  persons  could  go  and  exclaim  as  they  saw  the  wonders.  We  still 
need  museums,  but  we  also  have  collections  with  which  to  work.  It 
is  not  enough  that  students  merely  see  things  growing  or  see  dif- 
ferent breeds  of  animals.  They  must  come  nearer  than  merely  to 
look:  they  must  use  and  handle. 

Again,  college  farms  were  sometimes  run  with  the  idea  of  making 
a  profit;  but  you  cannot  run  a  farm  with  profit  with  student  labor. 
If  the  State  is  to  make  money  out  of  a  farm,  then  it  must  not  be 
used  for  teaching  purposes,  but  must  be  conceived  of  as  an  out  and 
out  business  enterprise. 

In  the  next  place,  there  was  an  idea  that  these  farms  ought  to 
represent  the  commonwealth- —that  a  farm  should  be  "typical"  of 
the  State.  It  is  a  mighty  poor  State  that  can  be  typified  in  one  farm. 
If  the  State  wants  a  typical  farm  let  it  have  it,  but  do  not  burden 
the  University  with  it.  Put  it  in  charge  of  a  Chamber  of  Commerce, 
or  other  advertising  organization.    Anybody  can  farm  typical  land. 

Then  there  was  a  long  period  of  years  when  the  college  farm 
was  used  very  little  or  even  not  at  all.  Not  knowing  just  what  to 
do  with  them,  many  of  them  have  been  allowed  to  drift. 

Then  there  came  the  passage  of  the  Hatch  Act  in  1887,  which 
established  the  experiment  stations ;  and  this  afforded  a  means  of  util- 
izing the  college  farm.  There  are  a  good  many  of  our  institutions 
which  are  now  carrying  farm  lands  as  experiment  stations.  Of 
course  we  should  have  farms  for  research.  There  are  two  kinds  of 
research  work  on  farms.  One  kind  of  research  is  in  farm  practice; 
the  other  is  research  in  the  fundamental  physical,  chemical,  and 
physiological  problems,  which  must  be  done  on  some  farm  directly 
under  control. 

Now  we  have  come  to  the  final  and  proper  stage, — the  farm  must 
then  be  a  laboratory.  Thus  primarily  it  must  be  a  laboratory  enter- 
prise, and  the  pattern  and  model  idea  are  only  incidental  and 
secondary.  If  your  people  do  not  believe  in  this  idea,  then  you 
must  educate  your  people.  A  college  farm  is  not  primarily  for  the 
purpose  of  growing  model  or  perfect  crops.    I  should  rather  have  the 


opportunity  to  teach  one  student  by  means  of  a  farm  than  to  show 
one  hundred  persons  a  field  of  perfect  pumpkins. 

If  we  study  plowing  in  the  class  room,  we  must  also  study  it 
in  the  field,  even  if  we  destroy  a  crop.  We  must  determine  and  test 
the  relation  of  plowing  to  moisture,  aeration,  microbic  life,  and  many 
other  questions.  It  is  more  important  that  a  man  learn  how  and 
why  to  plow  than  it  is  for  the  college  farm  to  grow  a  crop  of  wheat. 
Even  if  I  tore  up  the  drainage  on  a  farm  in  order  to  teach  it,  I 
want  to  be  able  to  do  it.  The  botanist  pulls  up  the  plant  to  study 
it.  In  learning  how  to  grow  potatoes  one  should  pull  them  up  and 
study  the  root  system.  Not  long  ago  I  was  asked  how  deep  potatoes 
should  be  planted  in  a  certain  soil.  I  asked,  ' '  How  many  of  you  know 
whether  the  tubers  form  above  or  below  the  feeding  roots,"  Four 
or  five  guessed,  but  no  one  knew.  But  on  that  fact  depends  much 
of  the  success  in  planting  potatoes.  If  your  students  want  to  see 
a  model  orchard,  they  have  a  thousand  of  them  in  California.  We 
want  such  an  establishment  as  will  allow  us  to  drive  our  cattle 
right  into  the  class  room.  We  are  this  day  building  a  class  room 
at  Cornell  which  will  hold  stock,  and  which  has  seats  for  the  students 
on  the  sides.  They  will  study  real  live  cattle,  not  pictures  and 
models.  The  young  men  study  those  cows  and  find  out  why  they  are 
good  and  bad  cows.  They  examine  their  conformation,  etc.  These 
cows  are  just  as  much  laboratory  material  as  the  plants  of  the 
botanist  or  the  chemicals  of  the  chemist.  Next  week,  if  we  should 
be  studying  the  question  of  beef  cattle,  they  are  brought  into  the 
building  and  the  students  study  them  just  the  same  way  your 
students  study  the  stratification  of  rocks.  Ten  acres  of  land  to  use 
when  I  want  it,  and  as  I  want  it,  is  worth  more  pedagogically  than 
a  thousand  acres  to  look  at. 

The  value  of  a  university  farm  from  a  university  man's  point 
of  view  consists  in  its  usefulness  as  a  means  of  teaching.  If  you  do 
not  want  to  call  it  a  farm,  call  it  land.  The  better  it  is  as  a  farm, 
the  better  it  ought  also  to  be  as  a  laboratory ;  but  the  laboratory  utiliz- 
ation of  it  should  always  come  first.  If  you  are  not  using  farms  as 
a  means  of  training  men  you  are  not  using  them  for  university  pur- 
poses. A  director  of  an  agricultural  college  said  some  years  ago 
when  a  visitor  complained  that  he  didn  't  consider  the  college  farm 
to  be  a  model  farm,  "I  would  rather  have  a  good  man  with  a  flower 
pot  in  a  window  than  have  a  poor  man  with  a  thousand  acres  of  land. ' ' 
A  university  farm  justified  from  the  university  or  pedagogical  point 
of  view  must  be  made  a  true  laboratory  to  collate  and  articulate  with 
the  theoretical  instruction,  otherwise  the  future  will  not  justify  your 
possession  of  it. 


